Preparing for visitors

We like to think of ourselves as hospitable people.

- BOO CHANCO

If this is true, we have a good basis for a solid tourism industry.

Unfortunately, we are losing that welcoming spirit. Instead, scamming visitors starting at the airport has become our unfortunate international reputation. We also have third world infrastructure which makes us uncompetitive compared to our regional neighbors.

Among the ASEAN 5, we recorded the least number of visitor arrivals at 5.4 million last year. That's nowhere near the 28 million of Thailand, 13 million of Singapore, 12.6 million of Vietnam and 11.6 million of Indonesia. I do not have the data for Cambodia and Laos but both have shown the fastest postCOVID recovery. Cambodia may have overtaken us by now.

We should be nurturing our tourism industry through good leadership and significant infrastructure investments. Mother Nature has given us a fantastic natural resource but we have proven incapable of developing our potential properly. Tourism can help move the economy and improve the quality of our people's lives in the countryside.

Our government is not spending enough to attract visitors and the little budget DOT gets is not spent properly to produce maximum positive results. The proper measure of DOT's effectiveness is a significant increase in the number of visitors who come here and how much they spend.

The DOT must fully support its attachés who are the foot soldiers in promoting the tourism industry. That's better than spending on the travels of Manila-based tourism officials.